International Box Office: Immortals rule the world

November 17, 2011 - By Alex

With not much else besides Tintin out there, it wasn’t much of a fight for Immortals to get on top of the international box office. Besides that, the French comedy Intouchables managed to go up in its second weekend instead of the usual drop that we have come to expect from every movie at this point.

Immortals made $38 million in 35 countries, thus getting the top spot and, surprisingly, enough to match the $75 million production budget. Yes, Immortals stands at $75.2 million worldwide so at this point we know it will be profitable since it’s bound to double that figure in the coming weeks. The fact that there are a lot more markets left to open also helps. Looking at Immortals now, I say it will finish with at least $250 million worldwide. 300 made $456 million in 2006.

The Adventures of Tintin was 2nd with $28.2 million and now sports a total of $159.1 million. It seems the movie could maybe pull another $60 million from its current markets and considering it still has more than a few countries left to open, $300 million internationally should be achievable. If The Adventures of Tintin doesn’t reach that mark and the US box office disappoints (under $100 million) then I don’t know if the planned sequel will get a green light. I’m certainly crossing my fingers for good word of mouth and great holiday box office legs.

Turns out Intouchables, in 3rd place, could be a fantastic movie since I don’t see how else it could have made even more money this time. Instead of going down the French comedy went up 58% for $23.6 million. Again, the vast majority of that money was made in France and besides that the movie is only running in Belgium.

Thanks to a great opening in China, Real Steel finished 4th with $12 million last weekend for an international total of $147.5 million, and an even mightier $229.3 million worldwide. Unfortunately since this cost around $140 million to make, Disney needs it to gross at least $280 million worldwide, an almost impossible goal.

And finally In Time is 5th with $8.7 million for a worldwide total of $84.3 million. On a $40 million budget, that’s just about enough if Fox played the distribution cards right.